Hydroponics
The original blower I built for the fog hydroponic rig was a simple $7 desk fan that I put inline with the fog stream. It did a good job for a time, but it was destined to fail from the moment it was submerged in supersaturated air.
When it eventually did fail, there was rust on the brushes and every part of it looked like unhealthy electronics. When I got around to replacing it, most of my strawberries had died, but my loofah plants hadn’t yet sprouted so there is still hope for them.
I purchased a nice 60CFM blower, ActiveAir model FN60SYS. Placed on the return side of the fogger, this fan draws leftover moisture in from the plant bays and forces it through the fog bucket with plenty of energy.
In fact, the blower had so much energy that I built a control box with a Home Depot fan speed control knob, a spare grounded power cord, an outlet, and a small electrical enclosure. This allowed me to dial down the airflow until there wasn’t excess pressure inside the bucket causing the water to splash about. Interestingly, decreased airflow translated into increased fog output as there was less turbulence in the chamber forcing the fog back into the water.
Pictures coming soon.
Garden
The peas are now 3 feet tall and are flowering. Some of the onion greens are 1cm wide. The pumpkin plants are getting quite large, and the beets have me seeing lots of red.
In the hanging plants, three of the tomato plants are taking off. No flowers yet, but they should be budding by this time next week. The lettuces are stunted because I didn’t put the light close enough to them as they germinated. They grew long and lanky so they don’t have the strength to produce a solid head. That said, some of them are getting quite leafy and would certainly serve a salad for two.
New comers in the garden include the loofah and my “pickle pot”. The loofah are useful as a medium to hold hydroponic starts in place, so I’ve planted about six of them around a 5′ plant support. Several of them have sprouted and we should see vines soon.
The pickle pot contains pickling cucumbers around the edge and dill in the center. Both have had a slow start but are now taking off quite nicely.
Now that it has finally warmed up in Seattle, we should be seeing some real garden progress. With any luck, one of the melon plants that I’d written off as dead will spring back to life and we’ll have something sweet to go with our beets, peas, lettuce, and onions.
